Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Smartphones Making Us Dumb?

Luisa D'Amato of Brampton Guardian posed this interesting question: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

If you said 10 cents like I did, you are wrong. The answer is at the bottom of this page. Answering questions like this, without deep thinking is what makes us lazy thinkers or "intuitive" thinkers who go with gut thinking instead of analytical thinking.

Results reported by psychologists at University of Waterloo suggest that using smartphones to find answers to questions – difficult or not – via search engines makes us lazy and less apt at solving problems.

The study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour, engaged 660 participants. Those who demonstrated stronger thinking skills, who double-checked their answers to problems, spent less time looking for information on the Internet using their smartphones.

With almost every answer on the Internet, people are becoming less and less interested in using their brainpower.

According to Psychology Today, "In addition to splitting our attention, there is strong reason to suspect that frequent smartphone use and the constant connectivity it engenders interfere with memory formation. To transfer information from short-term to long-term memory, the brain requires periods of rest. In a world where every free moment is spent refreshing email or responding to text messages, there are fewer opportunities for long-term memories to form."

And yes, the correct answer to the question is: The ball costs five cents. The bat costs $1.05.